300+ NHS employees trained in cyber resilience by CM-Alliance over 3 months

Date: 16 March 2021

Over 300 staff members of the NHS attended CM-Alliance’s flagship, NCSC-Certified Cyber Incident Planning and Response training, over a course of three months. 

Cyber Management Alliance has been at the forefront of training large organisations, especially those in critical national infrastructure, in cyber awareness, incident response and crisis management. Recently, over 300 staff members of the National Health Service (NHS) in the UK attended CM-Alliance’s flagship, NCSC-Certified Cyber Incident Planning and Response training over a course of three months. 

Out of this, nearly 260 employees of the 200+ NHS trusts sat for the optional examination at the end of the course, administered by APMG International and invigilated by ProctorU. Upon successfully passing the exam, course attendees also received digital badges which act as a secure, digital representation of their professional credentials. 

One of the main attributes of the course that stood out for the NHS delegates was the relevance of the course content and how readily applicable in real-life scenarios the training is. The balance between technical and business aspects emerged as another key highlight in the feedback shared. 

Stephen Dutton elaborated on this idea: “I would definitely recommend this course as it makes you think differently about the challenges facing your organisation, working carefully to deal with all the known risks to protect yourself before approaching the unknowns. The tutor is brilliant, fully engaging and makes what could be a dull subject come to life!” 

“The CIPR training was a bit of a lightbulb moment for me, it expanded several concepts I had been working on and gave me a more focussed direction in some areas where I had been casting my net too widely. The CM-Alliance approach to CIPR is no-nonsense and removes a lot of the unnecessary information we thought we needed. For example, we don't need a 70-page incident response plan. We need a concise document that people can understand. I want my colleagues and managers to do this training,” added Richard Watson of Berkshire Healthcare NHS Trust. 

Gary Ingham put it quite precisely when he said, “Good informative course which was well worth my time investment and I have taken away and implemented some of the suggestions made.” 

The course participants benefitted from a unique blended learning format which included over 16 live training sessions with an acclaimed cybersecurity practitioner as well as recorded e-learning content. The live training enhanced the knowledge pool of course attendees tremendously as they also got the chance to interact with other participants and share thought leadership, leading to greater engagement. 

Andrew Mobbs, a recent course attendee summarized this succinctly in his feedback: “Given the course was online due to the current circumstances it didn't feel like death by PowerPoint. It held my attention and was extremely informative.”

Another delegate who attended the training, Shanazar Zaffar, shared his experience: “I would definitely recommend the CIPR course to anyone who is working in an operational IT environment. The delivery of the content was also excellent, and the knowledge of the trainer was exceptional.”

The CIPR training course by Cyber Management Alliance also comes with a lot of helpful bonus content that course attendees can use and apply in their day-to-day operations at work. This course collateral includes checklists, templates, cyber response plans and workflows which NHS delegates unanimously found extremely helpful. 

Paul Glover of The Health Informatics Service said, “Great course and plenty of useful resources to take back with you and use back at work. The course is easy enough to understand and aimed at a non-technical audience.”

Learning from a practicing CISO who is also an experienced trainer and keynote speaker is one of the other big draws of the course. Like many past attendees, participants from the NHS too found value in Amar’s flexible approach to the training wherein he wouldn’t hesitate to depart from the theoretical discussions to delve into real incidents that have affected businesses in the past, making the training practical and the learning readily usable at work. 

Andy Kilbane of The Clatterbridge Cancer Centre NHS Foundation Trust said, “It was refreshing to be on a course where the instructor knew the content and hadn’t just read it from the course books."

Graham Reynolds of Northumbria Healthcare NHS Trust said, “Highly experienced and knowledgeable trainer, good amount of interactive & group content. Immediately applicable knowledge gained.” 

To know more about our NCSC-Certified CIPR training course and how it can work for your organisation, click here.